1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and device for treating sewage effluent at the source, for example at a business, residence, or the like. The method and device of the present invention separates most of the solid waste material from the sewage effluent and incinerates the solid waste material into an ash particulate, allowing for easy, environmentally safe, disposal.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Typically, sewage effluent is disposed of by connecting the toilet system of a residence or business to a sewer system for treatment at a municipal main sewage treatment plant. That is, the waste material, mainly fecal matter and urine, is suspended in water and flushed by the water to the treatment plant. Such treatment plants typically employ chemical and bacteriological treatment methods for decomposing and purifying the sewage effluent.
Such municipal treatment systems are normally effective, but do present a number of deficiencies. First, such sewer systems are not widely available. For example, in rural areas sewer systems typically cannot be efficiently installed. Further, even in urban areas, high population growth has in some cases exceeded sewage treatment facilities, necessitating a moratorium on hook-ups to the system. Expansion and development of sewage treatment plants is not only expensive, but also requires long lead times. During such a moratorium on sewage hook-ups to a sewer system, construction of residences and businesses is stymied and growth inhibited.
In rural areas where sewer systems with treatment plants are not cost effective, cesspools and septic tanks are widely used for treating the sewage effluent. Of course, in some cases raw sewage effluent is discharged directly into waterways. Cesspools and septic tanks are both deficient in that they require bacterial breakdown of the solid waste and subsequent drainage into adjoining leaching fields or overflow tanks or even into waterways. Of course, such drainage may clog up and render largely ineffective the waste disposal cesspools or septic tanks. Cesspools and septic tanks are also deficient in that they typically require a relatively large amount of fresh water to operate the systems.
It is an advantage for a septic system to have land which can sufficiently percolate to drain the leached water. In some rocky or mountainous regions the soil conditions do not allow adequate percolation or drainage for operation of such septic systems. Further, excavation costs can be prohibitive to the installation of such systems. Still another difficulty is that cesspools and septic systems require biolysis or bacterial breakdown of the solid matter in a putrefaction process. This putrefaction process is often environmentally offensive and poses a potential health hazard.
Several "on location" (located at the source) sewage treatment systems have been devised which use grinders to pretreat the sewage and holding tanks for subsequent bacterial breakdown. U.S. Pat. No. 4,439,317 typifies such a sewage treatment system. However, such currently proposed "on location" sewage treatment systems are not only complicated and expensive, but also present many of the operational problems and health risks associated with conventional septic tanks.
Therefore, it would be an advance in the art if an "on location" sewage treatment method and device were developed which separated, all or most of the waste material from sewage effluent and disposed of the waste material in an efficient, environmentally safe manner.